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Dogs are incredibly intelligent when it comes to zeroeth, first-order and second-order effects. 0-order: Pavlovian: Stimulus leads to unconscious reaction. No
by kortex 6y ago
Dogs are incredibly intelligent when it comes to zeroeth, first-order and second-order effects.
0-order: Pavlovian: Stimulus leads to unconscious reaction. No causal awareness.
1-order: Skinnerian: behavior X leads to good/bad outcome Y, I do more X to get Y. Causal inference without indirection.
These are pretty uncontroversial. Higher order reasoning sees much more debate, but I see evidence all over the animal kingdom.
This is the domain of cognition and eventually theory of mind, and arguably extends behavioral logic with recursion and reasoning about causality indirection.
Audrey knows several tricks. When we are trying to get her to do something hard, she knows we want her to do something. So she "rotates" through her repetoir, spinning, jumping, hi-fiving, searching for the correct behavior. One could argue that it's just extended Skinnerian conditioning, but I don't think so, I think this is the roots of 2nd order reasoning and creativity - "a solution exists and I need to try differnt approaches" - and it's cool to watch. She's 1.5 years old so she's still learning about the world.
But the best dog story comes from another owner who taught her poodle to drop toys before going outside (she couldn't leave hollow toys outside lest scorpions nest in them). So one day the dog brings two toys and drops one at the threshold, as if to say, "there, I paid your dues! Let me out!"
This higher reasoning is clearly harder for them though. I think this manifests most obviously in "no take, only throw!" They want to _have_ the ball (immediate minor reward) but also fetch (delayed large reward). She rarely drops the ball immediately, rather she almost drops it a few times, only to bite down at the last second, before relinquishing.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y agoI often look at our dogs like that as well and I'm just so fascinated at how intelligent they really are. The current dogs we have are quite possibly the smartest dogs I've ever been exposed to. But I believe it's because they just have such expressive personalities. They're a mix between havanese and coton de tulier's which amounts to basically aristocratic lap dogs that love to stand on their hind legs. One of them is like a jock, very athletic, very show-offy, loves to cuddle. However he's not perfect and has specific quirks to him that only he has! He's the one who doesn't like being blowed on, he gets really uncomfortable when you pick him up but he'll happily jump on your lap. The other dog is the shy type and likes to hide. He's kind of schizoid like where he likes company but only when he knows he needs it. Other than that he just wants to be alone. But when you come and say high to him it's the absolute highlight of his day. He likes to do things his way and isn't afraid to take charge. Often doing risky things like explorer or running in the road. Whereas the other one is really a tepid scaredy cat haha! These dogs have honestly made me question kind of what you touched on. I forgot to mention but these are my parents dogs and I actively do not live with them. But I partially go to visit because I loved these dogs so much when I did live at home. Almost because I essentially raised them when I was unemployed for a while. Now I try to visit once a week and my parents hype them up the days I come over. It just feels like walking in as santa to a bunch of kids on christmas morning. Almost as if they anticipated it and knew I was coming and were patiently waiting. I don't know what it is but I constantly question that they aren't capable of thinking beyond their daily lives.